Gulf oil spill health study climbs over 10,000 participants

It has been almost two years since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and now more than 10,000 cleanup workers that devoted their time and energy to the project are taking part in the Gulf Long-term Follow-up (GuLF) STUDY.

The GuLF STUDY is a national effort to determine if the spill has led to any physical or mental health problems in cleanup workers. The study is being conducted by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and seeks to employ the help of 55,000 participants, making it the largest health study of its kind.

"Ten thousand people have stepped forward to help find answers for their community and for the health concerns that linger after the oil spill," said Dale Sandler, Ph.D., chief of the NIEHS Epidemiology Branch and principal investigator of the study. "I encourage anyone who helped in the cleanup effort to make the call today to enroll in the GuLF STUDY. We want to hear everyone’s story. Everyone is important to this study."